Commentary on Hebrews and the Catholic Epistles John Calvin
John Calvin
We must ever hold this truth, that no symbols have ever been adopted by God unnecessarily or unsuitably. And God in establishing the covenant of the law made use of blood. Then it was not such a contract, as they say, between the living, as did not require death. Besides, what rightly belongs to a testament is, that it begins to take effect after death. If we consider that the Apostle reasons from the thing itself, and not from the word, and if we bear in mind that he avowedly takes as granted what I have already stated, that nothing has been instituted in vain by God, there will be no great difficulty.
If anyone objects and says, that the heathens ratified covenants according to the other meaning by sacrifices; this indeed I admit to be true; but God did not borrow the rite of sacrificing from the practice of the heathens; on the contrary, all the heathen sacrifices were corruptions, which had derived their origin from the institutions of God. We must then return to the same point, that the covenant of God which was made with blood, may be fitly compared to a testament, as it is of the same kind and character.
Heb 9:18-23
Hebrews Chapter 9:18-23
18. Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood. 18. Inde neque primum illud sine sanguine dedicatum fuit. 19. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people,
19. Nam postquam exposuisset Moses secundum legem totum mandatum universo populo, accipiens sanguinem vitulorum et hircorum, cum aqua et lana coccinea et hysopo, librum et totum populum aspersit,
20. Saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you.
20. Dicens, Hic est sanguis testamenti quod Deus mandavit vobis omnibus. 21. Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry.
21. Quin tabernaculum et omnia vasa ministerii sanguine similiter aspersit. 22. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.
22. Et propemodum sanguine omnia purgantur secundum legem, nec sine sanguinis effusione sit remissio.
23. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
23. Necesse igitur est exempla eorum quae sunt in coelis istis purgari; ipsa vero coelestia melioribus quam illae fuerint hostiis.
18. Whereupon neither the first, etc. It hence appears that the fact is what is mainly urged, and that it is not a question about the word, though the Apostle